China Says Army Is Not Behind Attacks In Report

Attorney General Eric Holder discusses the Obama administration's new strategy to fight the growing theft of trade secrets, in response to reports of Chinese cyberattacks.

Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press

SHANGHAI — A day after a United States security company accused a People's Liberation Army unit in Shanghai of engaging in cyberwarfare against U.S. corporations, organizations and government agencies, China's defense ministry issued a strong denial and insisted that the report was flawed.

At a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, the ministry suggested the allegations were destructive and challenged the study, which was produced by Mandiant, a U.S. computer security company. The report identified PLA Unit 61398 in Shanghai as one of the most aggressive computer hacking operations in the world.

Geng Yansheng, a spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, said China had been the victim of cyberattacks that have originated in the United States, and that Mandiant mischaracterized China's activities.

“Chinese military forces have never supported any hacking activities,” Geng said at the briefing. “The claim by the Mandiant company that the Chinese military engages in Internet espionage has no foundation in fact.”

On Tuesday, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, made similar remarks, arguing that cyberattacks are difficult to trace because they are “often carried out internationally and are typically done so anonymously.”

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a growing body of digital forensic evidence pointed to the involvement of the PLA Shanghai unit and that U.S. intelligence officials had also been tracking the unit's activities.

On its website, Mandiant released a lengthy report Tuesday detailing some of its evidence, including Internet protocol addresses and even the identities of several Chinese individuals it believes were behind some of the attacks. Mandiant said it monitored the hackers as they logged onto social networking sites or through email accounts.

Several military analysts said they also had traced some major cyberattacks back to the People's Liberation Army and its Shanghai Unit 61398, which is known to be engaged in network security.